BY ANY OTHER NAME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 94, 10 April 1941, Page 8

BY ANY OTHER NAME

| Written for "The Listener"

by

E.M.

S.

R. DIBBLEBEE wiped the last vestige of mayonnaise from his plate with a piece of bread, sighed gorgeously, and, pushing back his chair. proceeded to gather up the plates and things for washing up. "Good?" asked his wife. "Lovely," he responded, "but I can scarcely breathe." If you asked him, which of course you would be unlikely to do, he would declare that crayfish, covered thickly with the real French mayonnaise, was a dish fit for a king. The preparation of the mayonnaise, made with the carefully-dried yoke of an egg beaten, and added to almost drop by drop, by olive oil and vinegar, never failed to fascinate Mr. Dibblebee. If one stopped the beating for the fraction of a second before the mixture "caught," the whole thing was ruined, but once it "caught," one breathed more freely, and the oil and vinegar could be added with a more liberal hand, A touch of salt and pepper, and the thing was done. Mr. Dibblebee was rewarded. always, upon completion, by being allowed to lick the fork. The one thing which constituted anything resembling a fly in the ointment was of course the subsequent disposal of what his wife called the "carcase." Usually the problem presented little difficulty, for Mr. Dibblebee, on his way back to the office passed, close to his home, one of those conveniently-placed receptacles marked "Rubbish — Be Tidy," and with a_ self-conscious air, from which he had never been able to free himself entirely, was able to drop the "carcase" with a little flop, as he passed by. NN the present occasion, however, they had partaken of the dish at the evening meal instead of, as more usually, at mid-day, and the "carcase" still had to be disposed of. As everyone knows, any overnight hospitality offered to the remains were quite out of the question. You couldn’t burn the beastly thing, and you couldn’t just put it in the dustbin and forget all about it. Definitely not. Well, his wife was going to her Bridge Club that night, and Mr. Dibblebee was going to have a night out at the pictures. He had, in a moment of "frightfulness," thought of sneaking off and leaving the bundle in the kitchen for his wife to dispose of, but it wouldn’t have worked in any case. As he filled his pipe, all ready to go out (himself that is, not the pipe) she called to him from the bedroom: "Don’t forget the ‘carcase,’ darling." "Righto, dear," he called back, "I was just going to get it." Gathering up the parcel, neatly wrapped in brown paper, and already slightly damp on one side, he stopped to

kiss his wife. "Hope you have a good game, darling," he said. "Thank you dear,’ she murmured. "See you later." HE evenings were drawing in quickly, he thought, as he started off down the street. Already the street lights were on, and motor car headlights turned the bitumened road surface into hills and dales. He looked ahead to the post to which the rubbish box was fastened. A fair number of people about. He Was never quite at ease when people were near the rubbish box just when he had to dump his parcel. Well, here goes, he thought. A woman was approaching from the opposite direction. He trusted it was no one he knew, as at their present rate of progress they would pass each other at the critical moment when he had to dispose of the Temains. With the parcel all ready, he proceeded. "Damn and blast," he muttered, then "How do you do, Mrs. Windie," as, raising his hat politely, he passed on, still gripping his parcel. In fact so tightly was he gripping the wretched thing that one of the sharp spikes had pressed through the wrapping and jabbed him in the palm of his hand. He looked back, only to find that Mrs. Windie had also turned, as people sometimes do on such occasions, and was looking in his direction. *Damn," he muttered, "I shall have to dump the darned thing somewhere else." But where else? That was just the trouble. One could, of course, quietly flick it over some wall, or into someone’s garden, with a fair degree of success, but years of convention imperceptibly ruled that out, and besides, there were always, it seemed, pedestrians somewhere near him. He brushed aside the idea of quickly dropping the parcel on the footpath for the same reason,

At one corner, Mr. Dibblebee, pausing for a traffic light and looking covertly about him, thought that a policeman was eyeing him for rather longer than necessary, hurried across at the first flick of the amber light. EVENTUALLY then, if we happen to be going that way, we follow Mr. Bibblebee, his parcel now held under one arm, paying his admission money and entering the picture theatre. He only hoped that it would not be too warm inside, as he realised only too well how the "carcase" would react to warmth. : Seating himself upon a double seat at the junction of the two aisles and placing his parcel and hat on the floor beneath his seat, he proceeded to look about him. In his row there were so far only a few young people, talking and laughing, investigating the contents of rustling bags. His nearest neighbour was four seats away. The lights had been turned low to allow of the advertising slides being projected. Mr. Dibblebee was quite intent upon a coloured slide depicting a really ravishing damsel attired merely in two very intimate articles of clothing when his vision was obscured by two new arrivals pushing by. Hastily screwing himself sideways and tucking his feet well beneath his seat, he glanced at the newcomers, a woman with a little girl of about seven or eight. They became seated. Next to Mr. Dibblebee was one vacant seat, then the woman, then the child. The theatre was filling up, and the air had become noticeably warmer. From beneath his seat rose the first intimation of trouble, at first merely a suggestion, but more rapidly becoming. something definitely more marked. Perhaps, he thought, it was only his lively imagination, aided by a rather guilty conscience, but, looking slyly side(Continued on next ‘page)

BY ANY OTHER NAME (Continued from previous page) ways at the woman, he realised, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was neither. The woman was looking at him, or rather was glaring. He didn’t like that glare at all. It was, he considered, one of the most unpleasant glares that had ever confronted him, disgust, scorn, loathing, all were there. "What is it, Mummie?" queried the little girl. Mr. Dibblebee strained his ears for the reply. He caught something about "common people" and "never wash themselves." "So," muttered Mr. Dibblebee. "So." The woman and the child had now risen and he had barely time to withdraw his feet out of harm’s way when they again pushed past him, and made their way to a couple of seats immediately in front of him and three rows away. He had a clear view of them,

there being no occupants so far in the intervening seats. There was no doubt at all now in Mr. Dibblebee’s mind as to the odour emanating from beneath his seat, and, he feared, spreading rapidly. Obviously something had to be done about it, and quickly too. It was. The woman had turned and was glaring again directly at Mr. Dibblebee. As he reached under his seat for his parcel she turned away. Quickly does it. The final slide (Mr. Dibblebee remembered it) was now being thrown on the screen. Placing the parcel carefully at his toe, he calculated carefully the distance, allowing for a slight slope of the floor. He had not played with the "Reps" for nothing. A gentle kick started the parcel rolling, and, as he bent over the seat in front he followed its course to where it brought up, immediately below the seat of the woman. Now laugh that off, Mr. Dibblebee thought, as he sat back and prepared to enjoy the pictures.